U.S. & CANADA DISCO

In the 1970s in the United States, depending very much on who you asked, the new genre of urban dance music known as “disco'” was either a stunning musical embodiment of recently emergent liberation movements for women, African-Americans, Latino and homosexual men or a kind of music so flagrantly apolitical it required a violent response. The late '60s in America had been an intense and exhausting time of social and cultural change. By the early '70s enough people were tired of politics, tired of interracial violence, tired of war, that they welcomed a kind of music whose stated goal was to make them dance.   

Like most musical genres, disco didn't just appear fully formed, but rather emerged bit by bit as Rhythm and Blues, Motown, Latin and Jazz musicians added new beats, lavish production and synthesized instruments to their songs. One element of this emerging genre that broke new ground was its reliance on DJs to take the most danceable elements of a song and blend them together into "extended mixes" ("remixes") that gave club-goers a chance to keep dancing, dancing and dancing.